Hardware & Technical T-16000M Trigger Failing

[Dad Rock]

o7 Commanders,

I've had a trusty T16000M standalone flight stick since the start of my journey into Elite: Dangerous. After about 2000 hours of flight time, the main fire trigger button has started to fail on me. At first it was the odd slip when holding the button down for discovery scanner, but it's been getting progressively worse and now I have to press the button and hold it down a number of times for a discovery scan to complete. Or I have to squeeze the trigger repeatedly to get it to fire when in combat.

Has anybody had any experience in repairing something like this? Or is it time to send it to call it quits and get a new flight stick?

Fly safe!

 

[Henkka77]

Same here. Almost 2 years and approx 1700hrs in and the trigger has been doing funny stuff for months now. Usual funny stuff is double action. Pull the trigger once but it does the action twice, very fun to navigate in the menus.
I have also the same issue with the ADS, sometimes you have to pull it very firmly to activate.

I have still 2 months warranty left, so i could sent it for warranty exchange but that means i would have to live without HOTAS for couple of weeks..
I think i will just buy new HOTAS.

 

[r4nger0]

I have had the exact same problem with mine after 1300hrs of gameplay. I just bought a new one today from Amazon. Hopefully it will be just as reliable as my previous one. I can't imagine using anything else after establishing so much muscle memory with it.

 

[CMDR MAIN SEQUENCE]

Same here. I did squirt some compressed air in there - oddly, you know when you hold it down for too long and start to get the "liquid" coming out? That happened, I cursed but it actually seems to have helped somewhat. I would not recommend it, but it would suggest a dirt/contact issue.

From the official thread:

I've heard that the micro switch for the primary fire button can get dirty. If you're brave enough to take the joystick apart you can clean it.

Here's a youtube video for a teardown. It's a bit long, but it has good hints. I found that the pin keeping the orange trigger piece is very difficult to remove without some kind of driver and hammer.

I was able to fix unresponsive / double-tap issues on my trigger by squirting in some contact cleaner and working the mechanism a bit: no need to disassemble:

http://amzn.eu/d/0YBGZ6G

Once I've bought some contact cleaner I'll report back on results.

 

[Caramel Clown]

I have same problem. I took it apart. It's not dirty, just wearing off due to constant pressure. What I did is made a little pad from double sided sticky tape to go between trigger and microswitch. No more than 1mm thick, or something in that area. However, it is only a temporary solution and switch will fail eventually. Also, a word of warning. Have a lot of patience, putting this thing back together was quite a pain

 

[Dad Rock]

Wow, I'm glad to see that it's not just me. You've all described exactly the same symptoms I've had. I don't think I'll try to fix it. Besides, I've had 2000 hours of gameplay on it, but it's a shame that a simple flaw like this could spoil an otherwise quality flight stick...it's holding out for now, but I guess it's time to look around at other HOTAS brands.

 

[NascentChemist]

The T16000M is great, while it lasts. Switches do deteriorate and the twist pot just takes a nose dive after a while.

 

[Codger]

Yes, happened to mine as well. I just bought a new one and carried on

 

[Gun Star]

My trusty $40 PS4 Thrustmaster is still going strong after almost 2700 hours playing the game. The only thing that is wrong with it is the label paint is gone on most of the buttons.

I highly recommend them because they dont break the bank and last a long time.

 

[CMDR MAIN SEQUENCE]

Once I've bought some contact cleaner I'll report back on results.

An update: I finally got round to squirting some contact cleaner in there and so far the trigger is fine (I wonder for how long). All I did was remove the actual trigger button itself (by removing the pin) and squirted a very small amount of the cleaner into the gap.

 

[Stealthie]

In my experience, there are two main designs of trigger on joysticks.

The simplest one just has a switch behind the trigger, in which case any force imparted to the trigger is transferred directly to the switch, which is a bad thing.
A better design will have some kind of mechanical "stop" built into the trigger so that when you're squeezing the trigger the mechanical "stop" is what absorbs the force.

Anyway, microswitches use a spring-metal strip as a contactor inside them and these will eventually fail simply due to fatigue.
If the joystick is designed poorly, the lifespan might be short.
If the joystick is designed well, the switch will survive for it's entire design-life.
Either way, they do have a finite lifespan, regardless of how clean you keep them or how gently you treat them.

If you're lucky, a joystick will use a standard microswitch and replacements can be bought on ebay for pennies.

Oh, the other option is that some joysticks might use a really cheap "joypad" style switch, which are horribly cheap & nasty.
If you pull the trigger and there's a sharp "click" (similar to, say, a mouse-mutton) it's probably a microswitch.
If the trigger operates with a more dull click, like a joypad button, it's probably a button switch.

Again, button switches can be replaced for pennies but they're just not as reliable because they're not designed for the same sort of use as a microswitch.